19 September, 2018

No Bake Cherry Cream Cheese Pie

The easiest no bake pie in all the land. A crunchy graham cracker crust, a creamy lemony center, topped off with cherry pie filling. It’s SO GOOD! Cream cheese + sweetened condensed milk is magical.

My daughter Valentine, who is 8 months old now, likes to blow raspberries. All the time. Even when I am feeding her mashed carrots. She will take the bite I offer her (so innocently!), only to spew it everywhere with her tongue, while I try to hide my laughter and pseudo irritation. I’m sure she sees right through it, which must be exactly why my white t-shirt today is spattered with orange.

Yesterday I had her all wrapped up in a blanket and was trying to soothe her with a song before nap time, when she turned her head and zerberted my arm over and over again. So much for quiet time.

Can you see her tongue sticking out in the left picture? She’s pretending to spray me with sweet potato purée.

Have you ever had this pie? I wonder where it came from. I can’t remember the first time I had it, but it seems to be kind of ubiquitous. Most of the recipes I looked up were exactly the same (graham crust, mix cream cheese and condensed milk with lemon and vanilla, top with cherry filling) yet almost all the citations claimed “My mom,” ” Grandma Pat,” or “Aunt Sue” as the recipe source.

Not that citing the person who gave you a recipe is the wrong way to do it; I actually love it. That’s the way recipes travel. One of my most popular posts on The Food Charlatan is this recipe for My Mom’s Fudge, aptly named because my mom LOVES this fudge and has made it every Christmas to give to our neighbors for as long as I can remember. In my mind, this recipe is my MOM’S fudge, even though it’s the recipe they used to print on the back of the marshmallow creme jar. (People on Facebook get very upset about this. “That’s not your mom’s fudge, it’s the one on the jar!”)

Recipe citation is important, yes, especially when you’re publishing. But recipes are personal. I hope YOU become known among your family and friends as an awesome cook when making the recipes you find here on The Food Charlatan. People will say, “Wow, you’re a great cook!” Not, “Wow, you must have found a reliable blog!” And that’s just as it should be I think. Take the credit! You made it, you deserve it!

Anyway, back to the pie. I know I just posted Cherry Pie for 4th of July, but I hope you guys aren’t all cherry’d out. Although they both have cherries and are both pies, I feel like they are in different categories. I mean, this is a no bake. It’s brainless. The other pie requires a little more finesse, what with the stars and stripes and all.

And it is so darn good. It has almost all the same ingredients as my No Bake Cheesecake Parfait Bar, which is a super fun dessert to serve at parties, especially if you are feeling lazy. It’s basically a deconstructed version of this pie. Can’t go wrong with that!

*The lemon zest is an untraditional ingredient. It really makes the lemon flavor shine. Without it, the pie will have a more neutral flavor, making the cherries stand out more. I like it both ways! (Don’t skip the lemon juice)

Source: I feel like this recipe is all over the place (I saw many sources citing “my grandma so-and-so”) but I got the details from Allrecipes.com.